Training Workshop & Study Visit on “Entrepreneurship, Start-Up Companies & Business Ideas”

An-Najah National University "ANNU", coordinator of  Tempus Project Strengthening Universities – Enterprise linkages In Palestine “STEP” , which is funded by the European Union, organized a study visit & training workshop entitled " Entrepreneurship, Start-Up Companies & Business Ideas” from Monday to Thursday 23-26 Nov 2015 in Bologna - Italy , in order to upgrade & build capacities of the staff of the Industry Liaison Offices (ILOs) & and benefit staff, researchers and students in their institutions.

Several representatives from Palestinian partner’s universities, Palestinian Chamber of Commerce (Gaza & Nablus), representative from university of Bologna participated in this training workshop.

The workshop was opened with a welcome speech by project coordinator -Dr. Imad ibrik, and the workshop organizer (Bologna ) representative:Alessandra Baccigotti and Andrea Ravaioli ,   a special appreciation was expressed by all participants for colleagues from Gaza strip who successfully could come to attend this study visit. Then, Dr.Ibrik delivered a power point presentation summarizing the main accomplishments and activities have been implemented in the project so far as well as those implemented by the five Palestinian ILOs.

Dr.Imad spoke about the project “STEP” which is a project that aims to achieve a mutual benefit between universities and the private sector and establishing a partnership and a strong network of cooperation between them and to promote scientific research. He spoke briefly about the last achievement and the next steps and activities necessary to be done next on the months, also he highlighted that the focus of this project is to sustainably strengthen the relationship with enterprises.

The first day, Monday 23/11/2015 was an Internal Meeting among Palestinian universities (University of Bologna).

In the second day, Tuesday 24/11/2015: Visit to the University of Ferrara:

•           A visit to the University of Ferrara was conducted by the participants accompanied by two other colleagues from the University of Bologna.

•           Participants expressed their admire to the TTO, labs and the start-ups they visited and they were satisfied as they gained a new experience and exposure to one of the successful TTOs in Italy where their experiences could be greatly and successfully reflected to the Palestinian ILOs.

In the third day, Wednesday 25/11/2015: Training Session:

•           Entrepreneurship Mindset: An Assistant Professor from the Department of Management-University of Bologna delivered a useful presentation summarizing the theoretical backgrounds on entrepreneurship mindset and practices in the University of Bologna.

•           Academic Entrepreneurship: An Assistant Professor from the Department of Management-University of Bologna, presented different commercialization activities of the university-invented innovations.

•           How to Finance your Patented Business Idea: a presenter from Unindusria Bologna presented the relationship between business ideas and funding opportunities and sources.

•           The Social Impact of Start-Up Companies: the social impacts of stat-ups and study-cases in the University of Bologna were discussed.

In the last day, Thursday 26/11/2015: Training Session:

•           The Emilia Romagna Support to Innovative Start-Ups: a presenter from ASTER-Start-Up Department delivered a very practical presentation on the opportunities offered by the Emilia Romagna region to the creation and growth of the regional innovative start-ups.

•           Five Steps to Practically-Selecting and Exploiting Research Outcomes in a Business Idea: a very practical and successful presentation was delivered by a senior experienced consultant on a tool for exploiting the research outcomes into business ideas in Italy.

At the end of the meeting, the consortium agreed on the next month activities.

Report

Presentations